I was never really one to stay updated with the news when I was in high school. If my mom was watching the news in the living room and I happened to be there, the news anchors would probably get a solid ten minutes of my attention and then I had other things to do. Being in college without my mom to turn on the news every day meant that I had to take the initiative to stay informed of current events happening in my community and the world around me.

This was a challenge.

I understood the importance of being informed about current events because our lives are directly impacted by what is going on in our city, state, country, and the world. I just never had that motivation, desire, or time to sit down and watch or read the news.

This year, I decided this needed to change.

I am a rising senior in college, and the reality of becoming an adult and doing adult things is more daunting now than ever. Of course, I am very excited to graduate, get a job, and experience true adulthood, but I have this feeling of slight unpreparedness. Part of that feeling is due to the fact that the Illinois public school system failed to teach me important life skills like understanding finances and taxes or other useful life skills, but part of that reason is due to the fact that I am not in a habit of reading the news. To me, the news represents a pipeline to understanding the world and how it affects your decisions on a deeper level, and I wasn’t sure when I would, or should, start making reading the news a habit.

I recently realized that the time is now, and it’s not that hard to do.

This is what I learned once I heard about theSkimm. This company was founded on the basis that it wants it to be easier for people to live smarter by sending you a news recap every morning. What makes theSkimm so unique is that they don’t just generically type up what has happened and then send the bland and boring news to all their subscribers.

What they do is revolutionary.

They understand that there are many millennials, young adults, and people across all generations who don’t want to keep up with the news, don’t understand all the fancy terms thrown out there, or just don’t have the time to sit and read a newspaper or listen to the news on TV for an hour. The people who write for theSkimm write in a way that is straightforward, amusing, and gives you all the basics that you need to know.

The idea is simple and long overdue, and the impact on me has been life-changing.

Every morning as soon as I wake up, I’ll check my email and open up the trusty Skimm news recap to inform myself of everything ranging from important presidential news to what the celebrities are making the headlines for. It’s not your traditional source of news, but it is just as accurate and informative and much more entertaining to read that many of your traditional news sources.

So, thank you, theSkimm, for giving us the desire and the tools to be informed Americans.